The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) conference will be told next week that the legal profession is "fiddling while Rome burns".
President of APIL Patrick Allen, is expected to tell delegates the industry's preoccupation with base costs is the wrong focus.
He will say: "Why are we spending so much time looking at a fixed cost regime when the system of costs as a whole is falling apart and the reasons for this are nothing whatsoever to do with base costs?"
He will also tell delegates that the cost litigation which has caused confusion relates to insurance and not base costs. Allen claims that discussions about introducing fixed costs have left claimant lawyers feeling "railroaded".
"We don't know what the problem is and we have grave misgivings about the whole process. There has been a rush to get research carried out to decide if base costs are going up," he will say.
"We have no objection to research into this issue and have openly supported research proposals from the Lord Chancellor's Department which will allow proper time to be taken over the gathering of evidence.
"But there is a distinct feeling that this current, very limited, research will be used to drive through an agenda to bring fixed costs no matter what reservations are placed upon it.
"Our bottom line is this - we will not support a fixed cost regime except a limited `opt-in' protocol for small road traffic accident cases settled pre-issue. And we should negotiate this limited scheme with insurers and pilot it."
